


High Hopes Low Bacon

by Goldstone_Wolf



Series: High Hopes Low (Blank) [38]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), High Hopes Low Rolls (Web Series)
Genre: Arrows, Bows, Chases, Food mentions, Gen, Gimgar is crazy and we love her, Marketplace chaos, Owlbears, Zenya is a needy pseudodragon, aka why you can't trust gimgar and nagar to go shopping, also, and also not so cuteness, and she screm, but seriously gwing is a boss in this one, early morning cuteness, gwing is awesome and we love her, lots of screm, some mild violence, the story of how high hopes got kicked out of a town
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:34:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26262004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Goldstone_Wolf/pseuds/Goldstone_Wolf
Summary: High Hopes goes on an adventure to pick Zenya up some bacon at a local market. To say things go as planned would be lying to the utmost degree.Or, in other words, here’s a little bit of a headline:LOCAL HERO GROUP CAUSES CHAOS AT THE MARKETPLACE—HIGH HOPES? MORE LIKE HIGH CHAOS
Relationships: I'm not taggging the others because I'm lazy, Well romantic, none really - Relationship
Series: High Hopes Low (Blank) [38]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1692196
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	High Hopes Low Bacon

**Author's Note:**

> This is going to be a fun little thing. Please don’t ask what I’m thinking, I don’t know either.   
> Now, let’s jump into this fic!

High Hopes was woken in the middle of the night by a particular little green pseudodragon screaming her head off for no particular reason.

Growling to himself, Malark grabbed the cloaks he had been using as a pillow and shoved it over his head. Beside him, Paddy was weaving together a spell. “Hey, Malark, come here.” Lifting the pillow, he glared at the wood elf. Then he realised that Paddy was just holding a hand out to him, and he reluctantly took it. Around them, the sound of Zenya wailing suddenly dropped out.

“Huh. Thanks.” Paddy nodded, and Malark glanced down at where their hands were twined together. Neither of them seemed to know what to do for a moment, and then Paddy rolled onto his side. As he did, his shirt rode up just enough to show off the bandages he was currently sporting. They were meant to cover where a wolf (a _regular_ wolf) had managed to take a chunk out of his side and hip. “So…do we…”

“We have to keep holding hands. Or, touching at least.” Stammering, Paddy asked, “I hope—is it okay? We can stop, I can—”

“No, it—I’m fine with it. If you’re fine with it.” Someone—probably Gimgar—chucked a bag at them, and they both exchanged looks. Paddy was grinning almost wickedly, even though they both knew it was way too early in the morning for a prank. The rapidly dying moonlight shimmered in his eyes, lighting them a silvery green that Malark had never quite seen before.

_Stop staring at his eyes, you idiot. Roll over and go to bed._ He didn’t roll over, but he did go about adjusting his makeshift pillow while Paddy held onto his wrist. The whole…Paddy touching him was a little bit uncomfortable, but he could get used to it. By the time he had finished, the wood elf’s fingers were beginning to slacken. Settling down, Malark looked up to see if Paddy was awake. He wasn’t, still gripping Malark’s wrist with a light grip.

After a second’s debate, Malark wrapped his fingers with Paddy’s again, and he swore the wood elf smiled a little bit in his sleep.

+++

Later that day, they arrived in the next small town at noon.

“I am _so_ sorry for Zenya, she was—she’s—” Rook stammered as they wandered into the marketplace. Around them, villagers stared at the menagerie of a group. Paddy and Malark followed Gwing, Nala, and Rook as they wandered towards where the butcher would probably be. Gimgar, Nagar, Torlin, and Ava were heading off to where the green-haired dwarf guessed was a party of some sorts.

“Picky?” Paddy asked, smiling reassuringly and shrugging.

“High maintenance?” Malark replied at the same time, sending a much more chagrined look the wizard’s way. Rook ducked his head a little bit, wilting in just about every sense of the word. Turning to Malark, Paddy nudged him with his elbow. The assassin turned to look at him, and Paddy smiled softly. “What?”

Shaking his head, Paddy rolled his head and looked around. The smell of spices hung thick in the air, cinnamon and turmeric and saffron dancing around them playfully. Grinning as he looked around at the hanging paper lanterns, Paddy could almost forget that they had been woken up before the crack of dawn that morning by Rook’s screaming dragon. It would have been nice to sleep in a little bit, but he supposed they didn’t always get what they wanted.

Glancing at Malark, he paused as a weird flutter happened in his chest. When he had woken up sometime after sunrise, he and Malark had been holding hands. Almost like it was…entirely natural for them to do that. Blinking, he glanced down at his gloved hands. In the bright noon sunlight, his fingers were pale and almost glowing.

“Hey, Whitlaw!” Glancing up, he realised that Malark and the others were a little way ahead and several people were looking at him. Wincing, he jogged up to the others like it was totally normal, and Malark shot him a look. “Try not to fall behind, wood elf. We might leave you behind by accident.” The assassin touched Paddy’s shoulder.

Pausing, Paddy stared at him, then looked at where he had touched. “Was that a pun because of my cloak? Or was that actual advice?”

Malark’s eyes widened a little, and he scoffed before wandering off after the others. There was an old man selling jewellery nearby, and he gave Malark a particular look. The assassin growled something and then wandered off. “You there, elf boy! Come here!” Blinking, Paddy glanced around. There were no other elves that he could see in the area, so he wandered over. “Yes, I meant you. That boy, you like him?”

“Wh-what?” Glancing after Malark, Paddy stepped back and said, “Sir, I’m not sure you understand, I don’t have—”

The man’s bright brown eyes glittered with humour, and he laughed with the same warmth as summer rain. “Alright, think what you want, elf. Take this. Just because.” Something was pressed into Paddy’s hand, and he glanced up when he realised that it was a golden ring with an amber maple leaf gemstone set in it.

“Ah, sir—”

“Take it! It’s yours, no refunds, no returns, that’s that. All sales are final, thank you.” The man waved a hand, and Paddy felt himself being pushed away by the wind. It wasn’t harsh, but he yelped a couple times and then glanced back in confusion. The man was grinning smugly like he knew exactly what he was doing, then turned to talk to someone else. _Okay…then…._

Nothing happened for a couple hours. Sure enough, they arrived at the butcher just fine, and Rook placed a couple orders of dried bacon and jerky. Meanwhile, Gwing dragged them all after her so that they could get some actual food and supplies. They found Ava and the others dancing at the fountain with a bunch of other people, and then Nagar and Gimgar tried armwrestling and it got to the point where Gwing had to walk in, grab both the dragonborn _and_ the dwarf by their ears, and drag them out while talking about the fact that they didn’t “have time for this!” Everyone else followed her obediently, splitting up with their sections of the list to go and try to find what she wanted.

And, of course, Paddy ended up teamed with Malark.

Part of him understood that it was pretty logical. He was the one who knew Malark the best, so of course he would be stuck with him. Gwing knew they worked well together and that they wouldn’t get _too_ distracted. And if anything _did_ go wrong, then they were both capable of finding a way out of it themselves. They would be fine. And everything was fine…

Until it wasn’t.

Nagar ran up with Gimgar in his arms, the dwarf grinning wickedly with glittering, wild eyes. She was holding all of the supplies the pair had been sent to get. Meanwhile, Malark and Paddy were in the middle of bartering for a particular kind of potion that Gwing had explained was for Rook’s potions. A particular kind of _very explosive, very dangerous_ potion.

“Run! Run! All of you, ve need to run! Now!” Nagar shouted, and Malark leaned back to see around him. Whatever he saw, Paddy saw his eyes widen, and he grabbed the potions off the counter while throwing some gold coins (much more than the silvers the shop owner was saying it was worth) down and grabbing Paddy’s other arm.

“What? Where—”

“Just run! Don’t talk!” Sprinting after Malark, Paddy risked a glance over his shoulder and then immediately regretted it. An owlbear was charging after them. “ _Nagar, Gimgar, what did you do?!”_

“It vas the dwarf!” Nagar yelled none-too-helpfully.

Meanwhile, Gimgar cackled, “Yeah it vas!” Straightening up and nearly dropping several healer’s packs, she shouted over Nagar’s shoulder, “Yeah, come and get us! You can run faster than that!”

They turned a corner at top speed, Paddy’s boots skidding on the cobblestones under his feet. As they sprinted out of the alley, the owlbear came bounding around the corner. There was a resounding roar and then a rather nasty _crash_ as it slammed against the wall. Gimgar kept shouting insults at it. “Gimgar! Stop pissing off the owlbear!” Malark snapped at her, and she cackled again.

They came out to their rendezvous point—the front of the town. Gwing and the others were already there, waiting for them. When she saw them sprinting up, she frowned and said, “About time you—why are you running?”

“Keep running! Grab the stuff and run, we need to go!” Malark warned, and she paused and then glanced at the owlbear charging up at them. Expression dropping, she whipped her bow from her shoulder, nocked an arrow, and loosed an arrow right into the owlbear’s shoulder. It dropped like a rock to the ground, and someone Paddy guessed was the animal’s owner came sprinting out of the alley and ran to its side.

Needless to say, they were...strongly advised to leave the town.

**Author's Note:**

> This one was fun. I had a really good time imagining all of this happening (don’t tell me I’m the only one; even if it’s not true just, like, don’t say anything).  
> Anyways, on to the next fic. Y’all are loved and appreciated and awesome and amazing and I hope you have a great day! Now, into the fray once more!


End file.
